As you may know, developing countries are the most at risk when it comes to the effects of global warming. They depend quite a bit on agriculture and are also more closely located to the equator. At the Bali Conference, there has been talk of a new environmental policy deal that would create a fund for developing countries. The fund is a completely new item from the 1997 Kyoto treaty.

Saleemul Huq, a climate specialist at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, has some ideas about how this fund might work. A country that can’t meet its carbon emissions caps can currently invest in projects in developing countries. Huq’s idea is to take a percentage of those investments and put them in the fund to the countries that need it most. He said, “This is not development assistance. This is the polluter paying the victim of pollution.” There will have to be other methods that contribute to the fund as well, since much more money is needed than Huq’s solution could provide. But it’s good that some great minds in environment and policy are working on it.

The new deal is hoped to close in 2009.

Read NPR’s article to learn more.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Climate Change, Global Development, Global Poverty, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.